News

The Edwin B. Astwood Award for Outstanding Research in Basic Science, Endocrine Society (2023)

In recognition of the Society’s commitment to scientific excellence, the Endocrine Society is pleased to announce that it has restored the Edwin B. Astwood Award to the Laureate Awards to be presented at ENDO2023. Originally awarded from 1967 and renamed to honor the scientific contributions of the late Dr. Edwin B. Astwood, this laureate award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of endocrinology via their outstanding basic science research.

I will be exploring sex differences in host immunity for the next few years! Thanks to everyone who helped me on the pathway to independence.

@hollyingrahamSF

@DrEmilyGoldberg

@SuneilKoliwad

 and Jackie Maher.

Follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/joni_nikkanen

Drs. Lin Yuan (Julius Lab) and Muriel Babey (Ingraham Lab) were awarded a Weill Award for Junior Investigators in the Neurosciences Impacted by COVID-19 Setbacks in the amount of $50,000. 

Combining their basic and clinical expertise, this team of junior scientists will begin probing a new model to better understand diabetic neuropathy.

Project Title: Mechanisms of sensory nerve damage in type 2 diabetes – a role for insulin dysregulation?

Independent Postdoctoral Fellow Research Award

$15,000 one-year fellowship for meetings, courses, or research expenses

These fellowships are designed to encourage creative and independent research driven by postdoctoral scholars. The fellowships support UCSF postdocs who wish to explore biomedical research directions that are not directly linked to the research interests of their postdoctoral mentor and require the engagement of an additional collaborator or co-mentor. The Call for Proposals for the Independent Postdoctoral Fellow Research Award is announced once a year. Joni has been looking at evolutionary tradeoffs as a way to explain our current sex-biased diseases, specifically at the interface between host defense responses and metabolism in the liver. 

Archana receives new funding to pursue the role of estrogen signaling in the gut and its effect on the microbiome from the Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine - See All of the 2021 Awardees. Their Mission: The microbiome research community at UCSF is focused on some of the biggest chronic disease issues of our time with an emphasis on translating discovery into innovative treatment solutions. The human body is home to a thriving community of diverse microbes whose activities and products shape our health. Our mission is to accelerate our understanding of how microbes promote health and prevent disease and to leverage this information to develop novel, effective treatment paradigms bringing them to patients in the shortest possible time.

Ms. Padilla, a Neuroscience Graduate Student, receives a newly announced "fast grant" to study the role of drugs in motivating activity in a mouse model. Reasoning that exercise is recognized as one deterrent of dementia and cognitive failure during aging, Adriana wishes to know if triggering a neurocircuit for promoting spontaneous activity, describes in Krause et al., 2021 reverses aging in mice. This new grant mechanism provides funding for scientists to start working on what they consider the most important problems in aging biology, without delay. For more information on this unique funding mechanism, please go to this link to learn more.

Congrats to Bill and the rest of the team.

Their work was recently covered by Gretchen Reynolds in the NYT Science Times on 10/26/21. 

Ingraham celebrating with her lab and others colleagues on the Mission Bay Campus after learning that she was one of 59 women elected to the National Academy of Sciences in the 2021 class. Read more about this on the NAS Website - Link. Two other UCSF faculty were elected in the same class, including Professors Geeta Narlikar and Arturo Álvarez-Buylla. 

Adriana Padilla was one of four UCSF neuroscience graduate students to be awarded an NSF in 2021. A huge achievement! We can't wait to see what you do in the next 3-4 years.

With funding from NIA (1R01AG062331 - NIH Reporter) we will determine how the female brain restrains bone metabolism and search for a new anabolic bone factor to counteract osteoporosis.​​​ In a second project and with funding from NIDDK (1R01DK121657) we are working on a hormone-sensitive neurocircuit of spontaneous activity.